REVOLT AGAINST SOVIET

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 140, 9 March 1929, Page 30

REVOLT AGAINST SOVIET

The peasants of Russia are aroused, and a passive struggle is already going on between them and the authorities. It is charged by anti-Bolshevik editors that Russia’s hard times are due to the policy of Stalin, the virtual dictator of the country, who, during the last year and a half practically abolished the small volume,of private trade and private initiative which was introduced under the so-called new economic policy seven years ago by Lenin. Consequently, they aver, Russia has returned to “integral Communism” with the usual disastrous results. While Soviet newspapers do not talk much of Russian difficulties yet it would seem that confirmation of certain changes is now and again, to be found in them. For instance, Pravda, the official organ of the Communist party, admits that there is serious unrest in the villages and that assassinations of Soviet officials by peasants have become “strikingly frequent.” This newspaper even relates that for the purpose of assassination the peasants generally used what is known as a “cut-off,”' or a sawed-off rifle, which can be hidden under an overcoat. “Rul,” an anti-Bolshevik Russian daily, published in Berlin, comments on the situation as follows: — “A year ago, free trade in agricultural products was virtually prohibited, market places were closed, and traders driven out. The Soviet authorities came back to the old system—abandoned In 1922—0 f compulsory seizure of the peasants’ farm products at a fixed price, and sometimes even without any compensation. This was an event of enormous importance in the economic

life of Russia. It meant that after seven years the new economic policy, which was a system of co-operation between the State and the private individual, was discontinued.” The same paper publishes a letter from its correspondent in Leningrad, who says: “As in the years of military communism,” the system of ‘food cards’ has been introduced in the city, and citizens are ‘attached’ to their respective co-operative stores. The delivery of a quarter of a pound of butter, or of so many eggs is announced by radio at any time, sometimes even at midnight, as the greatest news in our miserable life. With fuel, however, it is still worse. Firewood is lacking, its quality is very poor, and in order to get it one has io wait in lines before the depots.... Consequently, dampness has become the plague of the whole city. The walls of apartments are covered with mould, and all complain. The Communists who live in the few houses with central heating are intensely envied." The “Journal de Geneve” points out that the virtual prohibition of free trade was directed by Stalin against the city bourgeoisie, which began to form itself under the new economic policy, and, chiefly against the Kulaks, that is, the well-to-do peasants. The dictator perceives in these two groups a menace to Communism. This daily adds: “Stalin is thus repeating the experiment which failed in 1920, and what is certain is that this experiment is about to prove a failure for the second time.